Current weather

Recent scares have some Americans rethinking meat

Even as she enjoyed the occasional steak, Max Daniels, a 20-year-old receptionist and part-time student from North Richland Hills, Texas, had been feeling uneasy about eating meat.

Then she started watching the sad news from England: cattle, sheep and other animals slaughtered by the thousands, dumped in huge trenches or piled onto smoldering pyres.

''I had already thought about becoming vegetarian,'' says Daniels, whose nickname is short for Maxine. ''When all that started happening, it kind of set it off.''

On April 3, she ate a hamburger at a fast-food restaurant. The next day, she says, ''I just decided I wouldn't eat meat anymore.''

Across the ocean in Finland, where the Dallas resident is on a temporary job assignment, Angel Olvera is watching those same reports. ''Yeah, it's a shame, and it's made me think a little bit,'' says Olvera, who is 25. ''I have friends who are second-guessing themselves about eating beef, but not me.

''Maybe it stems from being born and raised in Texas,'' he says. ''I was raised on beef, and I will eat it as long as I have teeth.''

These conflicting sentiments aren't new, nor is the debate over the health effects of meat and the morality of eating animals. But a succession of developments over the past few months has intensified the arguments -- and raised vegetarians' hopes of winning more converts.

''Of course it's affecting people,'' says Howard Lyman, a former Montana cattle rancher who became a crusader against eating meat. ''Whether it's the sight of so many animals dying or the effect on the environment, every time a consumer goes to the supermarket or sits down and opens a menu, they're influenced by what's happening.''

This is just some of the recent food for thought:

A February outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease among English livestock spread to the European continent. Although the disease rarely affects humans, authorities trying to contain the epidemic have slaughtered more than 1 million cows, sheep and pigs and restricted travel to parts of rural England.

The United States banned meat imports from Europe after recent outbreaks and began taking unusual measures to keep foot-and-mouth disease out of this country, including disinfecting the shoes of travelers arriving from England.

Fears of mad cow disease, a mysterious ailment that can attack the human brain, already have lowered beef consumption in parts of Europe. Although the disease never has been confirmed in the United States, authorities in March seized hundreds of imported sheep from two farms in Vermont because of fear that they may be infected.

The current bestseller ''Fast-Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal'' builds an unappetizing case against meat, ranging from graphic descriptions of slaughterhouses to warnings about dangers in hamburgers.

This article published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Tuesday, May 8, 2001.